No President for Saginaw

I have to admit, as a founding member of the reality-based community, I’ve been a little burned out on right-wing nut jobs lately. What with the Birthers, the Obama-as-Joker posters (what the h*** is up with those?), and a certain gubernatorial abdication*, there’s not a lot more my shattered hope for the American polity can really stand.

President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.

The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.

Some parents said they were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content. Nor, they said, had it been reviewed by the State Board of Education and local school boards, which, under state law, must approve the curriculum.

“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtis, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.

The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.

Here’s a particularly choice observation

“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtis, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

Next you know, the same people will be blaming Obama for the Holocaust. Oh. Wait.

The sad thing is, these wing nuts have actually managed to succeed in getting school districts to censor (or even ban) the President’s speech. And not just in Texas. My sources in Michigan tell me that even in places like Saginaw Township — as much of an upscale suburb as you’re going to find in Saginaw — the administration has been cowed into submission, and has instructed teachers to refrain from showing the speech.

On my planet, we let the President talk, even when we don’t agree with him. And how a speech from a Democratic president is inherently worse for children than one from a Republican, I have no idea. I’ll leave it to you, dear readers, to explore your own feelings on this.

But, meanwhile, if you want to do your part to stop the hysteria, why not give the Superintendent of Saginaw Township schools what for? Here’s their website: Saginaw Township Schools.

And the phone number for the office of the Superintendent: 989-399-8044.

Tell ’em Matski sent ya’.

* Like any assasin — in this case, an assasin of reason — I refuse to named the Alaskan Abdicator by name.